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In this article, Prof Beard said: “I had one very obvious aim. I wanted to make sure some of them had actually read a real piece of real Latin written by a real Roman after three lessons.”

Mary Beard consistently undersells Latin : it was not the language of the Romans only. In the context of Britain: Alcuin restored Latin to the court of Charlemagne; Bede wrote the first history of Britain in Latin; More wrote the world-renowned ‘Utopia’ in Latin; Newton explained Mathematics in Latin; Latin expressions even permeate modern English, e.g. inter alia ‘de mortuis nil
nisi bonum’, etc.